Real-life Superpowers

Could any real human beings have genuine superpowers? Join the guys as they take a closer look at extraordinary beings across the planet -- and, most importantly, ask who may be attempting to manufacture and control these abilities.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. Welcome

(00:24):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is They call me Ben. You are you? And that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. As always,
we're joined with our super producer Tristan McNeil. Has it
always been like that, Rejoy? Is this like a Mandela
effect thing? That's exactly what it is? Times of Flat Circle. Hey,
I have a question. We we have talked about this

(00:46):
off air at length, but it's a it's a question.
I always love to ask people if you can have
three superpowers, what would they be? And here's why it's
three instead of one. Most people choose flying, and they
don't even think, like, are you flying? You know, using
some sort of psychic power, some sort of levit uh,
telekinesis or teleporting is clearly better than flying. I think so.

(01:09):
But for some people it's about the journey. But then
you also have to have magical breathing powers so that
you can go to high altitudes and not like suffocate,
and and what happens if you go too fast and
you hit something in the air. You know, nobody wants
to go out by rude running with a seagull. But anyway, Yeah,
there are things to consider, So invisibility is always the

(01:29):
one I go to, uh, super strength and some kind
of superman like in vulnerability. Invisibility is like the way
it's portrayed in like the Lord of the Rings. It's
it's practically a godlike power. You can you can totally
manipulate events if you're invisible. Yeah, and you also want
to be invisible to electronic uh surveillance methods as well, Right,

(01:52):
so maybe just all three are invisible to certain spectrums.
There we go. Yeah, I would want to be uh
in vulnerable, I want to be able to teleport, and
I'd like to have some sort of shadow power. Wow,
like we're making super superheroes. Can you be more specific
about my shadow? Shadow powers are pretty obvious. You can

(02:15):
manipulate any and all dark sure, Okay, yeah, that's that's it.
What about you know? Oh man, you guys are putting
me on the spot. I mean, I think teleportation would
be really really cool because I hate the airport. Well,
are we are we talking like nightcrawler that can teleport
to something he can see. Don't make me embarrass myself,

(02:37):
so he can teleport up to like two miles and
he can bring other people with him physical strain two miles.
If I'm gonna if I'm gonna cut out the airport,
I need to be able to blip myself to New
York or l A. And I like, yeah, and I
like the one thing that you probably also want is
you want some sort of instinctual inability to tell pour

(03:00):
yourself into objects. Well, that's what I'm saying, Like being
able to see something is pretty important. And know, at
least like some monkeys paw business here, we really have
to like think out all the ramifications of these superpowers.
So I'm gonna stick with that. So it's almost like
my other two powers have to be stuff to mitigate
any like fallout teleportation. You don't want to accidentally all

(03:22):
of a sudden become stucco, you know, or you just
end up like in a pillar, a concrete pillar, and
there's you got one arm hanging out, But couldn't you
just suck? And that's the story of me. No, No,
would you use Blip as your superhero name? I like blip.
I think it's cool, especially if that's the sound you make.
And I'll wear like a cool eighties like backwards hat

(03:42):
and like some hypercolor clothes, you know, game Boy, I'm
kind of mixing my eras here. I think no, I
think this is this is a great conversation. We want
to hear what your three powers would be as well.
One of the things that we love on this show,
and I'm sure you can tell, is we love superheroes supervillains,

(04:04):
and usually one of the reasons that these heroes or
villains are so extraordinary is because they have an extraordinary
power or powers um that are unique to them as
an individual. And this is an old idea. It didn't
just start with comic books. Oh yeah, this goes back
to antiquity. We're we're talking about the belief in a

(04:26):
human having some kind of ability beyond what would be
considered normal. We're talking about superhuman strength, precognition um, some
kind of stamina that's extraordinary or even durability, being able
to live forever and having immortality or even commune with
certain types of animals, or just maybe having a really

(04:47):
pungent odor. That's true, Yeah, but one of the biggest
ones that we've talked about before is being able to
transmute a metal or one object into another type of object.
Sure lead to gold water or two whine, all the hits,
all the big ones, And don't think we let you
slip past Matt. By the end of the show, we're
gonna have to figure out what your superhero or supervillain

(05:09):
name is. Okay, and it's fair that I'll have to
do the same thing, and then together we'll nominate something
for Tristan. Sorry, Tristan, you don't get a vote, all right.
So often these powers that Matt mentions would come from
either interaction with a god or being the descendant of
a god. You know, that's so much mythology is lousy

(05:32):
with half human half god creatures, right, And these abilities
could also be some part of a curse. You know,
you get something good and on the other hand, oh,
there's awful things happening in your life. Here are some
examples featured in this clip from the two thousand sixteen
movie Gods of Egypt. Ages have passed since the gods

(05:55):
walked among us, and one god can save us, but
not without his eyes. We made your all the world
so how do we stop try to keep up? Didn't
know what swing that has Nami behind tan go bess.

(06:18):
We should run run all the time. What is it?
It's a fictional world where every every important person in
Egypt is white. Yeah, that's the main superpower is the
superpower of whiteness. No, but it's like it's this total

(06:41):
Michael Bay dumb blockbuster kind of like transformersy looking thing
featuring all of these gods from you know, the mythology
of Egypt, like uh, Hors and Horus and all that stuff,
and like but it's just blistering Lee dumb and the
tree like superheroes right treely like super here everything about it. Yeah,
just big lots of like bullet time, you know, slow

(07:04):
mo three kind of stuff. And I don't know, I
didn't want to derailis too much. But I just think
that's a funny example of like like kind of like
how would we modernize these ideas of superpowers from the
past into like a really dumb example of like modern
superhero movies, And this is it. That's spot on. I
think that's a great example. It's a good argument too,

(07:25):
because as cultures and civilizations evolved, stories of these similar
powers persisted, but they're increasingly acknowledged to be works of fiction. Right,
and the cause of the power also evolves. You know,
we have radioactive spiders and chemical spills instead of um
gods banging our moms totally. It's like a way of

(07:46):
like making peace or like wrapping your head around some
phenomenon that's tied to like the current time or when
some social norm or some like environmental distressing thing, you know,
like like again like radio activity, you know, nuclear war.
A lot of like the early superheroes like in Marvel
and d C. Even like Captain American stuff were tied

(08:07):
to like fear of like an enemy, like an unseen
you know, Nazis and stuff like yeah. Yeah, And all
of this goes back to man's want to be exceptional
in some way, to dominate, right, to dominate and just
be cool man, harder, faster, stronger, smarter, right, uh, And
that's what this episode is about. So I think we

(08:27):
did an alright job with a brief look at superpowers
and heroism and how it evolves with culture. But here's
here's the thing. They're real life superpowers. Yes, they're real
life superpowers. And as we record this, there are not
only people who have these abilities that we will explore.

(08:49):
We'll give you some examples, but there are groups and
organizations seeking to exploit or privatize or somehow profit from
these abilities. I know, it sounds like we just wrote
this really cool Netflix original sci fi thing, But isn't
that a thing? Isn't there like, is there already one? Well,

(09:11):
it makes me think of that that show, um Misfits.
Oh yeah, where like this is no spoilers, but you know,
these young delinquents are imbued with pretty cool unique powers
based on some sort of electrical storm or something like. Yeah,
but they have to kind of like figure out how

(09:31):
to like work their lives around these abilities because some
of them are very debilitating and like you know, cause
real problems the relationships and stuff. I will give just
for an example. I'm really glad you mentioned that show.
Just for an example of the range of these powers. Uh,
there are there are people who can um manipulate things

(09:52):
telly kinetically, but only dairy products. That's there's one guy
who does that. It's scientifical. No no, no, no, on Misfits,
maybe I r L maybe there's let me know that
that that's a pretty weak superpower would you do, like,
just douse people with rotten milk? I don't know. I
don't know, man, wait for someone to drink milk and

(10:14):
then be like, you're in my world now and the
milk turns, do you lose your control over it? That's
a good point, man, That's that's the dark side. So
here then are some examples of real life superpowers. Longtime listeners,
you may recognize this from a some of this from
a video we have done in the past. You may
have heard some of these and other sources. But unless

(10:39):
you're unless you're very specific type of researcher, you probably
haven't heard all of these. The first one is echo
location human echolocation. Yeah. Yeah, it's the ability to sense
objects around you by hearing the echoes that are produced
from a sound, usually that you produce. Isn't that the
dolphins dound that that they do like when they're they

(11:00):
use the same kind of thing where they're sending out
a signal and they're just listening to what's being reflected.
And this this could be replicated by humans, for example,
through tapping of a cane or stomping a foot, snapping
the fingers, making clicking noises with one's mouth. Yeah, it's
used a lot in people who lack site or have

(11:20):
visual problems and not to be crassed. But this is
like real life Daredevil and stuff, you know, without the
superhuman enhanced other senses. Right, But echo location was coined
by this zoologist named Donald Griffin back in nineteen forty four. However,
the reports of people who um lack you know, lack

(11:43):
site being able to locate these objects goes back to
seventeen forty nine. Silent objects not like not like playing
Marco polo with someone in a pool or something, but
you know, being able to know that this bottle of
mineral waters this far away, you know. I mean it's
almost like the audio equivalent of like tracking ascent, right,

(12:04):
where you send something out and then you can determine
how far it is based on like how quickly it
bounces back or something like that, you follow a trail,
you can kind of like fill in the distance, I guess. Yeah.
And and since the fifties people have been researching this
in human beings. Right, this learned echo location. And we

(12:25):
don't know for sure if someone was born blind, if
they would naturally learn it on their own. We don't
know if that's you know, like, uh, the overwhelming majority
of infants are all born knowing how to swim, right, yeah,
which is still that's a weird thing. And then they
lose it and then they somehow because I mean I
had to teach my kid to swim, so obviously they
didn't stick the only they were born learning how to

(12:46):
knowing how to ride a bike. That'd be cool, right,
that's yeah. Yeah. The craziest thing to me about this
specific type of echolocation is that it's not all the
years your ears are not doing all the work. It's
also the skin, right, the skin. So they used to
they used to believe for a long time that you, um,
if you were practicing echolocation, you would feel pressure changes

(13:10):
nearby objects. And this is something, uh, this sense of
proximity is something that a lot of people report in
in in various different ways, like, uh, do you believe
that you can tell you can feel when someone's looking
at you right from behind? Feel like I feel it? Yeah?
I don't. That's another that's your question. I Are we

(13:33):
only remembering the times that we turn around and there
is someone there, because I usually we should PEPSI challenge
that sometimes we should definitely do that. How do we
test that? Do we just tell our coworkers looks like
I see Ghostbusters, you know where he liked holds up
the cards and when they get wrong or whatever. Have
you guys ever tried walking down our massive hallway to

(13:55):
the elevators and closing your eyes. Yes, I've tried to
do that before, and you really can sense when you're
getting close to a wall. It's really interesting, but that
is all the ears. But it also makes sense because
you would you detect a change in the airflow. I
would think you as it butts up against a surface,
if you felt like a wide hallway, as you got

(14:17):
closer to a wall, I I would think you would
definitely detect a sense of like a change in space.
You know, I don't know, Yeah, I think I think
that's a really solid argument. One of the most famous
cases of this in recent times is a fellow named
Ben Underwood. He was diagnosed with retinal cancer at the
age of two, and at the age of three he
had to have his eyes removed, and then he learned,

(14:40):
with the help of a mentor, to to detect the
location of objects by making clicking noises with his tongue
and with this ability, he was able to run, play basketball,
ride a bicycle, roller blade, play football, skateboarding. These are
you know, using dynamic quote unquote silent opt x you know.

(15:01):
And this is very much two things. It's very much
daredevil to me because he had this mentor that was
teaching him how to do this right um. And the
other thing is you can see Ben Underwood doing these
things by searching the internet for him. You shouldn't see him.
And also one thing that's interesting is this is one

(15:22):
of the talents that apparently can be taught to anyone
with okay hearing. Wow, So we could all learn to
practice echo location. Is there a YouTube video? Can I
learn it? I wonder? You know, I need like a mentor.
You probably need a lot of experiential practice, you know.

(15:44):
And I'm not doing it, then you're not gonna do
it here at that stage in life where you like,
I'll just make friends with someone. If I can't learn
to do it by watching one and most a series
of three YouTube videos, I'm not interested. That's sad. There's
another There's another thing that gets grouped in with superpowers
that we definitely should mention, but we should also point

(16:05):
out that this could be its own this could be
its own episode, and the idea of intellectual superpowers geniuses
savant syndrome. You know, a genius as as we know
as a person who has an exceptional intellectual ability or
originality or they're super prolific, typically to a degree that

(16:27):
is associated with new advances in the world. So they
don't just build a better mouse trap, they like change
the way we think of mice and traps. And it's
neat because a lot of times in comics and stuff,
the ones that have this superpower tend to be supervillains, right, yeah, right,
they're too smart for theirs. I mean he and watch Man,

(16:49):
he had some super strength stuff going on, but he
was also like super techy minded and could you know,
come up with all this crazy stuff. But then a
lot of times there's like an antithesis to that on
the good side, too sure, but they're they're flawed. There's
no like perfect, perfect person who's also very smart as
a superpower. Their doctor Doom level crazy or Oza Mandy
is crazy, or they have you know, like crippling alcoholism

(17:13):
like Tony Stark and some major father issues stuff together
in the more recent movie. It's true. So one thing
that's fascinating here as well is that despite all the
self professed and um, the self professed geniuses and all
the other people who say so and so is a genius, Uh,
most geniuses tend to concentrate in a single sort of

(17:37):
discipline or activity. Now there are renaissance people around, you know,
who do multiple things, but it's much more common for
someone to excel in a single intellectual pursuit. And so
far throughout history, none of these geniuses have focused on
finding a precise scientific definition of the word genius. Because

(17:59):
we also, it turns out, do a real shoddy job
trying to define intelligence. So when we say someone's a genius,
technically we don't really know what we're saying. Very is
the word qualitative. Yeah, Instead we're instilling like an end result.
We're saying John Lennon was a genius because he made Imagine,

(18:21):
or like the Beatles, where genius is because they made
this work that we find to be superb right, right,
we don't have any hard data, any quantitative thing. There's
an argument that a that a genius needs to have
at least i Q score, but uh, the i Q
test itself as we know is yeah, flawed to best.

(18:45):
Like the last season of Lost, Yeah tell me about
this in my opinion one where they were all dead,
but that's not what happened. As a call back, we
got I got for spoiling the Lost and somebody lost it.
When I'm when I'm imagining geniuses here, I imagine that

(19:07):
we're all D and D characters and we all have
a certain amount of points that we get to go,
you know, we get to put into our character, right,
and in this instance, in reality, those points are actually
time that we spend on things. So when you're rolling
the dice, you're it's actually you spending time on things,
and then you get better and better and better exponentially,

(19:27):
perhaps at one thing, Like we're saying, a genius a
lot of times will focus on something or have a
specific area. Yeah, that's a good point. And speaking of focus,
there's another side to this. We mentioned um when we
talk about intellectual abilities, and that is something called savant syndrome,
which is controversial but is real. Oh, it's very much real.

(19:50):
And this is when someone demonstrates a profound ability something
that is objectively in it exceeds what would be concern
are normal somehow like in eight right, like almost like
a pre disposed, a predisposition towards a very specific skill
set that like they have no business like based on

(20:11):
experience and and it's it's extra extraordinary because a lot
of times people who are who have Savant syndrome or
almost every time there are defects in other areas of
the brain or of development of the super non PC
term is idiot savant right right, that's the old that's

(20:33):
the old term they would use. And the it was
used because they would say, well, here is a person
who in many ways may not be able to UH
function unassisted in society. But isn't it weird that they
know what day of the week when September two five
would be? Is this like the Dustin Hoffman character and

(20:55):
rain Man kind of like a cliche example of this.
It is it is UM and I think you're spot on. So,
as Matt said, these people who have Savant syndrome may
have neurodevelopmental disorders, even brain injuries. There's something called acquired
Savant syndrome where someone sustains a traumatic brain injury and
then emerges with UM. For instance, the ability to UH

(21:21):
sketch with enormous proficiency, right, um, and I think stuff
you should know might have explored one or two of
these sorts of cases to do. Check that out. The
most dramatic examples of savant syndrome occur with people who
score very very low on i Q test while being
inarguably brilliant in specific areas. And we do have to say,

(21:44):
although it's called a syndrome currently, it's not recognized as
a mental disorder or even part of a mental disorder
in medical manuals. Uh So, what kind of stuff? What
kind of stuff are they skilled at? What are these
savant skills all about? I mean, the most common type
of savants are what's called calendrical savants or human calendars.

(22:10):
And they are able to count, like you were saying
earlier than calculate the day of the week for any
given date with a speed and accuracy that's pretty much uncanny. Um.
Or they can recall memories, very specific memories, from any
given date in time if they're aware of so, they
can if they were alive. It's not like seeing the future,

(22:30):
but yeah, that would that's another superpower entirely, that's another Yeah,
we don't have precognition on there. There's also a thing
called hyperthymesia. This is people who have an extremely detailed
autobiographical memory. These aren't This is different from savant syndrome. Uh.
These people will have very very detailed memories, and they

(22:55):
don't have to try to remember them, you know, like
a mentalist or someone doing a UM reciting piatrick. Uh.
These people could if they were reciting pie, allowed just
to themselves and then you know, they remembered that, Oh,
I was hanging with my buddies Ben and Null, and

(23:17):
that's why I remember these eight hundred digits of pie,
you know. Uh. And that's that's strange. You gotta wonder
how useful or not useful it is? Is there? And
actually they're like having a photographic memory in this I
think it is. I think that's pretty much the same.
The weird thing is it's tied to UM. It's tied
to their associations. So they wouldn't just remember every page

(23:44):
of a book they read. They would remember how they
felt for every page and how much change was in
their pocket, you know. And do you think that would
be the potential to like overwhelm you. I think by
the time you're in your like fourties. That's gotta be
a real hast. I would just be like, shut up,
shut up. Brain. It reminds me of how Daniel Tamnitt,
who there's this book called Born in a Blue Day,

(24:05):
and I think he's got another one thinking and numbers.
It's somebody that my wife was really fascinated by, who
can think when he thinks about numbers, he sees a shape,
like a physical shape. Yeah, got that coming up right, Yeah,
and he but he combines that with I guess a
photographic memory to be able to do extraordinary things with numbers.

(24:26):
So it also sort of grounds the memories in multiple
sensory encodes. Right, So you know there's a day that
is blue and is round, right, and maybe has a
soft texture and a soft fuzzy texture. Yeah, it's incredible.
What's it Tuesday? You are correct? Sir, you are correct.

(24:49):
Should we pop into a quick break before we continue? Yeah,
let's let's get to the really weird stuff after a
word from our sponsor and we're back. And guys, let's
jump right in one of my favorites, your favorite. How
many spoons can you stick to your body? Matt? That's
it magnetism, get spoons too big magneto man. I remember

(25:15):
just being so excited by that as a kid when
reading in the comic books, the idea of being able
to take anything metal and manipulate it. He he came
off as pretty godlike. Oh yeah, especially in the movies
when he's just like arms outstretched, just like stuff is
like levitating and then he crushes it down. That was
really neat. The only defense is to build your armor
out of stone. I like that. So yeah, so human

(25:42):
magnetism and the human quote unquote magnetos that turns out
are not quite as um not not quite as powerful.
They're not lifting stadiums, but they are attracting objects to
their bear skin. Yeah, and they're uh, they're human magnets.

(26:03):
That's the that's the idea of One example would be
Edit bar el Chiev from the country of Georgia. He
is a Guinness World record holder for the most spoons
on a human body. There's too many spoons on my body.
It was fifty spoons. I guess he got the fifty one.
Maybe he ran out a room and they told him

(26:25):
he couldn't you know, this is a family show, Well,
wasn't this on my body. Okay, well yeah, because they
don't say the size of the spoon. Is it a
regulation spoon? Yeah? Wasn't this somehow debunked though by Mr Randy?
I don't see. See. I don't think the use of
the word debunked is appropriate. This is like explained. I know.

(26:47):
Sometimes a lot of people who consider themselves like Internet
expert skeptics love to think that they're debunking stuff. It's
like if you drive by a Blockbuster and it's closed.
You didn't debunk Blockbuster, it's just got open. Well, I guess, Okay,
so the right thing would be he showed that it
wasn't actually magnetism. Yeah, yeah, and and some people can

(27:08):
just like some people would say, yeah, he debunked the
claim because he said it's not magnetism, but the actual
thing is still happening, music, extraordinary thing happening. It turns
out that these people have very sticky skin, very different powers.
So basically like when I take a spoon and stick
it on my nose and I just hang it there. Yeah,

(27:32):
but with their whole body, so they have they're just damp.
They they have a higher, higher friction rate on their skins.
So one of the things. One of the big clues
that that's not really magnetism is first off, there's no
detectable magnetic field. And secondly, although metals the most popular

(27:55):
thing that's they stick to themselves. Other things like glass, porcelain,
would plastic brass. Uh, these things also stick to them.
So it's not it's not they're not walking refrigerations. They
pull some like six Spiderman type tricks. You could get
as close to Spiderman as possible. Spiderman with the Christen

(28:18):
and Caroline, they're always like John Spiderman attorney it law.
So this this idea of um unusually frictive or sticky skin,
it's interesting because I wonder if it would be possible
to do what you're saying to to increase the degree
of stickiness such that these people would be able to

(28:39):
support their own weight. And that's a really tall order.
I mean, there are lizards they can do it, right,
So why not people? I say, just add syrup? Just yeah,
you gotta did. What happened? Did big Syrup get to you?
They really did? Yeah? Yeah? I mean what can I say? Man?

(29:00):
The Maple Group, I don't know what they're called. They
don't have business cards or something. You guys, we we
all went out for drinks a a week or so
ago and uh, nat tried to order syrup. They didn't
have it, said syrup straight up, come on the local.
Then there was that one time we were out and

(29:20):
randomly these three Canadian dudes and suits with like black
cases came up and took Matt aside, and I had
to peek over it, and they had opened the case
and they were these three perfect bottles of maple syrup
is stuck in one of those like foam cut out
things in the perfect shape. And then they were gone,
and they had these they had these little leaf tattoos
right on the neck. You could just see. I had

(29:41):
them design the containers look just like the Secret of
the Use things. Oh yeah, Mutigen, Yeah yeah. Hey. Um Also, uh,
there are there are a lot of It turns out
there real superpowers that are kind of like in the
film Unbreakable. Uh, they're superpowers that are the opposite of

(30:03):
um genetic weakness. So we know, like color deficiency or
color blindness. That's the thing that happens red green color
blindness is the most common. It's generally in men. And
then you know they're less common ones relating to like
yellow and blue or complete color blindness, where everything is
just a noir film for the rest of your life.

(30:25):
And then there's some one on the other side. There
are people called tetra chromats. These people, who are overwhelmingly female,
appear to literally see more colors than most of humanity
ever will. What does that mean though? Are there more
colors than what? Are there a finite number of colors? Well,

(30:46):
they can differentiate, so it's probably something so like what
would be just regular old green to us? Is this
vast panopoly of strange visual delights? I don't know. Well,
according to you know, my Photoshop color wheel and all
the things that I ever deal with in color, there's

(31:06):
what about a million different shades and versions that I
can see you with my eye, But tetra chromats can
see up to what a hundred million, which again I
don't know how you even get down that deep into
the crevices between the color floding around in a psychedelic
dream at all times. I imagine that it's different, but

(31:29):
to them it's probably normal. So right, most people have
three cells or receptors in our retinas, but tetrachromats have
a fourth receptor, and that may be what allows for
their heightened color perception. It's also estimated that about twelve
of women in the world carry the gene for this
fourth receptor. It makes me think of like certain really
expensive cameras that have like bigger sensors or like you know,

(31:52):
more sensors or whatever. You can just do your equipment
allows you to take in more information. That's what it
means is the stuff is there. It's not like it's
we just can't see it right, right, right exactly. So
carrying the gene doesn't guarantee you wind up with supervision,
but those who have the gene and who are immersed
in a wide range of colors from a very young

(32:13):
age appear more likely to develop it. Researchers are still
trying to figure out what's going on with this, still
very early days and research here, so there aren't any
hard numbers on how it manifests itself. However, it's a
real thing, and if you are listening to this show,
you may very well carry this gene. And it's like,

(32:35):
my impulse is to be like, tell us what it's like,
sort of like asking a color blind person to describe
color but like the opposite or whatever. Yeah, it's tough.
It's just you know, it's cool, it's just how I
just you know, my day to day. Yeah, it's my
day to day. I don't know what you think blues
like it looks like Yeah, there's another one though, this

(32:56):
one is This one is crazy. This is perhaps one
of the most comic book style powers. Super strength, that's right,
genuine super strength. Where are you waving your fists at us? Man?
Because I have it? But aggression. That's why you spend
so much time being nice? Right, Yeah, I have to

(33:16):
be nice, wouldn't You wouldn't like that? An Uh? So
we hear about cases of hysterical strength so often, right,
A mother is lifting a car to rescue a kid,
and someone's like, hey, average person, average mom person, you
can't lift that corolla. I don't know. And this evidence

(33:43):
is almost always anecdotal, right, because it'd be really tough
to create an experiment where we just scare people and
see if they can lift cars. Well, yeah, and and
it could a lot of times. It's not as extreme
as a lifting an entire car, but something that you
shouldn't be able to do physically, right, Right, So there's

(34:04):
a pretty good example, or um, there's a pretty good
theory I should say about how hysterical strength could work.
And it all goes back to adrenaline. When adrenaline is
released by your adrenal medula and that's a interior region
of your adrenal glands, uh, it allows blood to flow
more easily to your muscles, which means more oxygen goes

(34:25):
to your muscles, which means your muscles function and elevated levels.
Right and then when they are okay, So when you
are throwing a punch or lifting the Toyota Corolla to
save your kid or whatever, uh, or just lifting things normally,
your skeletal muscles, the ones that are attached your bones,
are activated by impulses from the nervous system. They contract,

(34:49):
they tighten, and adrenaline facilitates the conversion of your body's
fuel glycogen into its well the fuel source into the
actual fuel glycogen to glucose. So this gives extra energy
to your muscles. A sudden burst of glucose also allows
them to strengthen further for very short time, and it

(35:11):
also dampens your pain receptors a bit. So when you
are like Let's say in an adrenaline rage and lifting
something and you don't feel your muscles maybe somewhat breaking
in that moment. Yeah, maybe you'll pay for it later.
But that's only temporary super strength. It turns out that

(35:34):
the truth is stranger than the fiction. In this case,
there really is full time, permanent, for the rest of
your life super strength. So at five months old, this
fellow from Grand Rapids, Michigan named Liam Hookstraw pronouncing that
right uh, started doing an expert gymnast move called the
iron cross uh. And then by eight months old, Liam

(35:56):
could do a pull up, and by nine months he
could climb up and down airs. I am thirty four
and I so that is pretty cool. Um. So soon
the family thought what's going on here, likely figured they
should get it checked out, so they took them to
a specialist who diagnosed Liam with a rare condition that's
loosely called myostatin related muscle hypertrophy um. And that's according

(36:21):
to a report by the Associated Press. And then virtually
every animal on earth has a gene that produces a
muscle grown inhibiting protein called myostatin um, and high levels
of myostatin make it hard for the body to build muscle,
and low levels allow muscles to grow. So what's the

(36:41):
takeaway here, ben Oh, So that means that the gene
responsible for myostatin, if it's broken, then there's no limiting
of your muscle development uninhibited, just bp nous. So it's
not it's not a gene that is supposed to give
you super strength. It's a gene that's supposed to prevent

(37:02):
you from having super strength. And when it's broken, you
get more muscle essentially. So you may have seen this
before too. Uh Cows cattle, Yeah, there's a breed of
cattle called the Belgium Blue that all of them just
look ripped. They look like I don't know how you
would convince them to go to a slaughterhouse, you know,

(37:25):
they look like they could just stare you down. Do
you think they're delicious or I don't know. They might
not have marbling, you know, with like the little strands
of fat in there. Uh waigu, they are not. But
it's also this gene has also been found in mice.
There was another kid in Germany who was detected with

(37:45):
this ability earlier. The condition is so rare only a
few other cases have ever been found, So there's not
secretly some community of superpowered tank people. Yeah, just you
and brock Lesner. I guess yet at least well, there's

(38:05):
also so just a laundry list. A couple more here.
There's also synaesthesia, right, which we mentioned earlier. That is
where your sensory inputs for one sense get cross wired
or you know, they get somehow combined with a another
sensory input. So haven't you experienced that before? Yeah? Yeah,

(38:29):
So for like, in uh my case, a lot of
textures have colors and kind of shapes of their own
um and in other cases, so Vladimir Nabokov is phenomenal

(38:49):
writer who also had synesthesia, and his wife had synistasian
I think one of his kids at Sinnesstagian, and he
attempted to prove for him letters had colors and shape
or colors and textures, and he attempted to prove that
they were somehow accessing this greater truth. But it turns
out that his wife and his kid were both like,

(39:12):
uh no, dude, oh is not a blue silver? Oh?
They saw it indifferent? Yeah, They're like, oh is yellow?
Why are you being an idiot? So this seems to
be individual, but it is a it is a legitimate
um cross century thing, and a lot of times people
have probably experienced it in childhood maybe or in other

(39:37):
maybe under the influence of a psychotropic especially music, or
with music. Well, it's a thing that comes up often
with musicians and artists. In fact, um Mental Floss has
an article called twelve famous artists with synaesthesias. I'm just
gonna rip this one real quick, just for your information.
We got Nabokov who wrote Lolita very well in on

(40:00):
author Tory Amos, who I was completely obsessed with when
I was a kid. Um, We've got Jeffrey Rush, the
famous actor from Shine to Great film Not So Great
from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Um, we got
Duke Ellington who was a fantastic bandleader and musician and
arranger and composer. Billy Joel who to funk it, We've

(40:24):
got dev Hines from um he was. He's in a
band called Blood Orange that's really really cool if you
guys haven't heard them, recommend that. And he has something
called chromasthesia, which is where you see sound as color,
interpret sound as visually very very cool and then rounded
out we have Ben Bowling of how stuff works and

(40:44):
stuff they don't want you to know slash car stuff
slash brain stuff synesthesia artists. Oh we oh that's very kind.
We do have a brain stuff video about synesthesis there
if someone's interested in learning it. But yeah, it's a
it's a real thing. Another cool thing you can do this.
I wonder should we do sinnessesia an episode just on cinesia. Actually,

(41:05):
look about this article. Most of these artists had chromasthesia. Yeah,
so I can see that when you're a musician, that
kind of would be an interesting where you experience sound visually.
I could see that as being kind of would be
maddening at times, but I could see it as being
like a whole headspace to be in for like getting
there creatively. It would predispose you to pursue music, I think.

(41:27):
And then also, uh, if some people's voices might just
be ugly to you, so you might not be able
to talk to certain people. Chase the good notes because
they're the colors that are totally you're it enhances the
muse thing. But then I think you're right, Ben, it
also enhances whatever the dark side of it is. Literally
be like please stop talking, please please, You're ugly. Ugly

(41:52):
is blinding me? Uh. There's also this is this one
is this will be one of the last ones for
this purpose. Closest thing I think to a true, true
superpower that's in this list, more so than super strength.
Temperature control yes really yeah, as a survival mechanism, I
think so. Yeah, it was um Houdini able to do this?

(42:15):
Did I make that up? I wouldn't be surprised if
he was, and I haven't confirmed that, but it is.
It is possible for people to learn to control their
um the autopilot functions that your body usually has. You
know there There are probably not many people who can
or would purposefully stop their hearts unaided through meditation alone,

(42:38):
but there are people who are able to raise or
lower their functioning body temperature. Buddhist monks do this. You
can see multiple video studies where they're in a cold
room with an ice ice blanket placed over them and
they just steam it off through a practice called tom

(42:58):
oh I want to say trump essentially through meditation just centering,
so like getting so focused on it, I was totally
wrong about who do you need? By the way, just
putting out there maybe just maybe he just didn't tell anybody. Yeah,
but there's a European named wim Hoff who learned uh
these techniques and applied his own interpretation of them, and

(43:22):
now he holds twenty six world records because he has
a superhuman ability to withstand extreme cold. And he says
that through breathing exercises, he turns up his inner thermostat.
He is able to climb up places like Everest just
wearing shorts and shoes. Everest is very cold if you're
familiar with it. Um known as the Iceman. Yeah, and

(43:44):
a in a burst of creativity, he calls himself the
ice Man. But you can see his numerous world records
and this. I don't know what's your favorite power so far,
you guys, of the ones on the list. I honestly,
I think this is mine because one of the one
of the longest things humans have had to fight against

(44:05):
is the winter and the cold and being able to
you know, I don't know how long he can withstand it.
It seems like a long period of time if he
can get up kill him in Jaro, uh using these
techniques and staying warm uh swimming. I saw a video
of him swimming just in the ice water, and he's
just like, yeah, it's all good at going for temperature control. Honestly,

(44:30):
not the hothead, Frederick. I just think it's the best,
more so than super strength. Yeah, because muscles, you know,
they're fine, they're kind of gross. What about you know
I could see you as a Sinsatia fan. Yeah, I
don't know. I mean it's hard to know whether it

(44:50):
would be cool or not. Experience it might be you know,
it might be like a double edged sword, right like
where it's like, Okay, I'm this like genius composer, but
I wish it would stop, you know, it seems interesting.
I don't know. Man, Like, I think I'm with Matt
on the the body temperature one that certainly is a functional.

(45:15):
All right, I'm switching mind. Then I'm I'm going to
serup skin. That's my favorite stick stick sticky body, sticky crane.
Let's do it. Then, I don't have to really wear clothes.
I can just get objects and apply them to myself
in various strategic whatever you need clothes, you'll just roll

(45:36):
around on something. Oh yeah, we're good to go. Well, uh,
in case you don't, I don't want you to feel
like you have to give your final answer now, because
there are a few more things and some interesting developments
in the near future, which we'll learn about after a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. So far, our

(45:59):
journey into the world of extraordinary superpowers or semi supernatural
seeming abilities has has been pretty pretty fun, you know,
kind of lighthearted. We haven't run into any real danger here, no,
and it's all well, mostly it's been natural abilities that
have been found in people, right, yeah, yeah, and it

(46:21):
shows us a little bit about the scale and the
scope of the human genome. Right. We still have no
idea what other stuff could be out there, but this show,
being the type of show it is, of course, we
do have a turn. There is some stuff they don't
want you to know, and they, in this case are

(46:44):
various organizations that we mentioned in the top. The big
question here is what if someone decided to stop waiting
on the genetic lottery, the infinite monkeys and infinite typewriters
just sort of plucking away until they make poetry and Shakespeare.
What if someone's decided to stop waiting for accidents and
started creating superpowers and humans through technology. You mean, just

(47:08):
through technology. Uh, and a possible lack of ethics. Right, Yeah,
human experimentation and then possibly covering it up. Right. We've
talked about DARPA projects in the past, including transcranial direct
current simulation, alteration of sleep patterns, and a couple of
other things by feedback experiments creating cybernetic implants or the

(47:32):
exploration of quote unquote wet wear stuff like that. Uh,
it's possible, but that's something that most people know about
and that or most people are somewhat aware of and
doesn't seem too terrible, right, But there's something else there.
It turns out that there are prevalent worries that private

(47:56):
entities may be attempting to control genes and genetic expressions,
one which would be, for instance, an immunity to pain. Yeah,
this is I'm gonna use it, nol. This is fascinating.
I saw a video on YouTube not too long ago
about a gentleman who has this genetic condition, and it

(48:22):
has upsides and downsides to it. It appears the big
upside is that you can't feel pain, or you feel
pain to a much lesser degree than any normal person
walking around would, so you could perhaps persist long after
at an activity, long after a pain threshold would have
been reached by another person. Yeah, because pain is really

(48:43):
just your body telling you, hey, don't do this, or
get away from there, or you know, there's danger right now.
I have a friend who I grew up with who
had a condition called spina bifida has and he couldn't
feel had had some extremities that he had a feeling in,
and so it ended up happening. Sometimes he would get

(49:03):
a cut or something like that and he wouldn't notice it,
and over time, if he didn't pay attention to it,
it could be problematic. Right, Yeah, So it's like, you know,
you think the idea of not feeling pain is super cool,
but it could be a liability to write no pain
is a survival mechanism. We would probably not be here
if we could not have something to tell us that

(49:26):
fire is hot. Yeah, exactly. And in this case, we're
dealing with a mutation in the gene l r P five.
If you're writing these down, make sure you're keeping track.
There will be a quiz at the end on the genes.
It's oh no, they we're doing a gene quiz. It
might be okay, you know, we'll play it by here.

(49:47):
We we don't want the rules of our show to
be as rigid as the bones of this clan. Oh.
I don't know if that was worth an Oh that
was where they nod that we are keeping the conversation moving.
Uh so, yes, it's it's absolutely true. This this gene

(50:08):
has been isolated. It has been found. We have traced
the source of ni unbreakable bones. There's another gene for
a what's called a super sleeper mutation. Imagine if you
could just sleep four hours a night for the rest
of your life, and you would feel great better. In fact,

(50:30):
that people who got their solid eight to ten. There's
a group of people they're called short sleepers, and scientists
are only recently uncovering what makes them this way. It
turns out it's a gene called h D e C two.
For the most part, researchers believe these are connected to
specific genetic mutations, and the one that we just shouted out,

(50:53):
h D e C two is only one of the
genes that they have gone public with. So there are
other ones that are currently classified research. And just like
we mentioned with tetra cramats, there are also super tasters
man I was just about to plug our buddies Will
and Mangesh from Part Time Genius. They have an episode

(51:13):
on sleep where they talk about Margaret Thatcher and her
you know, infamous ability to sleep very very little. Um.
But there was another episode they did where Jerry, our
mysterious boss and producer of Stuff you Should Know, and
myself joined Will and Mango in the studio to take
a test to see if we were super tasters. It
involved putting this little piece of paper in our mouths

(51:35):
and if you were a super taster, it would taste
really bitter, and if you weren't, it would just taste
like nothing. And Jerry's a super taster, you no way
really bitter? Wow, Well, so we have a superpowered individual
in our midst. Did they tell you it was supposed
to be better before the test? See? Now, they shouldn't
have done that. They should have given you the no. No, no,

(51:58):
I wanted it. I mean the way that she described
it was like WHOA like big time Like I I
in my mind was like maybe it's a little bitter.
That was my placebo effect kicking in. But for her,
she was like, you guys, this tastes like grapefruit. Like,
here's another here's another genetic predisposition that maybe a world changer,

(52:20):
and let's let's hope that the right researchers get ahold
of it are allowed to work with it. Cancer immunity.
In Ecuador, there was a group of people who are
called the Lauron Dwarves l A r O n uh.
They appear corned all the researchers to be immune to cancer, diabetes,

(52:41):
and a couple of other diseases. Um. This the people
who suffer this syndrome and also have this immunity have
a lack of hormone called i g F one, and
scientists are hoping that they can develop a drug that

(53:02):
will mimic the you know, the good parts of this
genetic defect, and the people who inherit the defect are perfect,
like in perfect human proportions. However, they only grow to
an average height of four feet uh. And they're about
three hundred people in the world who have this condition,
which is known as Lettle and dwarfism uh and a

(53:23):
third of them live in remote villages in Ecuador southern
Lo Hub proference. So in this case, i g F
one is this blessing and a curse because it seems
like the lack of it is what causes the growth
or the lack of growth in in height, but it's

(53:44):
also the thing that's preventing them from getting these terrible
diseases not having it. Yeah. I g F stands for
insulin like growth factor one, and it's uh, this is
the stuff that simulates a cell to grow and divide.
If you're an ordinary person, you have too much of
this hormone, you can develop prostate, breast, or bowel cancer

(54:04):
early in your childhood. So it's a it's a good question,
you know, would you what would you do to prevent
somebody from like your child, from gaining getting cancer? Yeah,
I know, like what consequences would you take? Right? Also,
what would you do if you were a private corporation

(54:27):
of pharmaceutical or something to control access to this. The
privatization and for profit deployment of genetic therapy is a
huge concern and it may be very very big news
in the next few years. Have you heard of something
called gene doping? Well, yeah, so, I mean it's it's

(54:50):
basically a hypothetical, non therapeutic use of gene therapy by athletes,
and the purpose is to gain the upper hand over
their opponents in terms of their performance in particular sporting events, um,
most of which all of which I would say prohibit
such applications of genetic modification. I mean, it's essentially they

(55:13):
call it doping because the doping is is referring to
taking performance enhancing drugs. This is just kind of a
cooler science ere you know, version of that. Yeah, And
as of as of April fifteen, at least, there's no
hard evidence that gene doping has been used for performance
enhancement yet. But that data is from two years ago,

(55:39):
more than two years ago, now, So what else could
have happened? Would do you think it be harder or
easier to detect? Even? Like, how would you even like
screen for it in the way that you would like
with a blood or you're in test for you know,
steroids or human growth horn owners. That's true, And I
also wonder when it comes to this expression, how one
would do it in a an adult person? You know

(56:02):
what I mean? Because for me, I always I had
always thought of genetic modification is something that occurs in
utero early on before you become a human. We talked
about this, I think over drinks one night with my
my roommate Frank, where you know, there was a thing
I read where UM researchers were able to encode a
gift of a galloping horse into a sequence of d

(56:25):
n A And what resulted from that was this notion
that we can theoretically store electronic information in our genet right,
but how do you how do you do that? How
do you add it in? And the thing that we
came up with was, well, maybe you have to inject
it into your stem cells and then it propagates throughout

(56:46):
your entire code. I guess I don't know scientists, lab
rats talk to us. Uh yeah, so yeah, that's I
really appreciate you bringing up that conversation because that is
all true. It is phenomenal. This is what a time
to be a live type stuff. Gene doping would involve

(57:06):
the use of gene transfer to increase or decrease expression
and biosynthesis of specific proteins. Uh. Reporting to the latest theories,
This could be done by and directly injecting a gene
carrier into a person, or by taking cells from a person,
transforming those cells, and then sending them back to the person.
So there would be like no uh, potential for rejection

(57:29):
or something for form cell. We have some examples of
this too, i'm and we'll group them by how they
might affect performance. So first there would be the skeletal enhancement.
Alpha acting in three is found only in skeletal muscles
in humans, and it has a different what's called polymorphism

(57:51):
in world class athletes in comparison to normal people. So
one form causes the gene to make protein and it's
found in sprinters and it's related to increased power. And
there's another form that causes the gene to make less
protein and it's found in endurance athletes. So we could say,

(58:11):
you know, we're gonna make Tristan mcneiol the world class sprinter,
so let's inject him with this form. Have you seen
the boy run? I don't think he's good. He's a gazelle.
He is like a cheetah mixed with a gazelle grace. Yeah,
just springing across the tundra. There's this slide the savannah
wherever gazelle's spring, he's smelt. He's like smiling and nodding,

(58:37):
but it's like a mischievous Yeah, it's very much like
a Michael Douglas and falling down smile. Uh, I found
out today a mutual coworker of ours don't have to
go too off trail father in law, old buddies with
Michael Douglas. Whoa huh, that's our boy and dog. Leave

(58:59):
it at that. Oh, you have to go to the
ant Man set and watch the part where he was filming,
the part where he looks young and like he said,
they shot it with him and then with a younger
actor that looked a lot like him, and they did
the exact same moves and they somehow like comped them together,
like with the body or whatever to like I don't
know exactly. You know, there's the movie stuff these days

(59:21):
that's going over my head. That's what that sound is.
But anyway, regular topic powers would also be fished, but
they're technologically driven, you know. I think in the comics
there's a temporary time where for some reason he finds
out he's been exposed to pim particles so much that
he can just change without the suit. But let's be

(59:43):
realistic in our comic books. God, you know what a
good drink is underrated? Sim's cup, a pim's cup. I've
never had one. Because of my aversion to touching metal refreshing.
What no, why do you have to do? Don't they
have to come in a metal cup? Moscow mule, that's
a moscow mule another thing I will never drink. Uh,
So the imagine that's that's pretty crazy. To increase that uh,

(01:00:06):
that running power in one of two ways or what have?
You do it in both ways? You mean just switch
it back and forth. Yeah, whenever you want it to.
It might be consequences. So just shoot yourself in the
thigh or the base your spine when it's time for
a sprint at the end of your marathon. Couldn't there
just be like a capsule you bite down on. Yeah,

(01:00:27):
I like this idea. Anything you want, guys, Thanks Matt. Uh.
There's also we mentioned myostatin UH deficiency that would enhance
your musculature. There's a specific kind of glycoprotein that can
act as a hormone controlling your red blood cell production
and uh. This glycoprotein, specifically arithro poet in or e

(01:00:51):
p O, has already been injected as a performing performance
enhancing substance for many years. What it does is it
since it increases the production of red blood cells. It
means that you get more oxygen available to your muscles,
which means that you experience fatigue in a different way.

(01:01:11):
Your endurance is getting pumped up. Jeez, well we you
know we do want to pump pumping up. Here's a
scary one. There are proteins that could affect not just
your physical attributes, but your mental attributes. So imagine gene

(01:01:32):
doping that effects your psychology pain perception. Right, someone is
a a rugby player, like I don't want to feel
any pain what I'm rugby, Yeah, you'd be a super
rug or perhaps a cricket player wielding a wicket. You

(01:01:55):
could do whield wickets. Maybe that's to we opens. I
learned about cricket recently, um for a for work thing.
But I'm probably never going to be a world class
cricket player unless I douat myself up with all four
of those things we mentioned before, just like a fistful
of needles. Sam. Yeah, and if I survived the stabs,

(01:02:18):
then uh then I'm gonna take over the world of cricket.
The point of this, and we do hope you've enjoyed
the episode so far, is that as fantastic and fictional
and and sci fi esque as these may seem, there
are not only genuine extraordinary human abilities, but there are
groups that are working to further these abilities, to turn

(01:02:43):
them into a profitable enterprise. And look, we're not automatically
saying that's bad. I do think personally that it's dangerous,
but that's my opinion. But then we ask the question,
you know, what if the profit motive is the only
way these things become available? Right? What if there're It's
sort of weird because I don't want to paint a

(01:03:04):
false psychotomy, but who would you rather, uh be the
person controlling super genetic super strength. Would it be a
military that is making soldiers? Would it be you know,
fiser or something that it's like with a military allow
that happens behind closed doors and relatively low oversight from

(01:03:27):
the public. I mean, if if any at all, right,
you're talking black budget stuff there totally. It's like the
thing in the Wolverine movie, the really depressive one. Yeah,
I mean I don't give anything away, but there's that's
definitely a big and specifically you know, with kids, and
it's it's the way they portray it. It's super dark
and super like, Wow, we really let this thing get

(01:03:50):
out of hand and now it's coming back to on
that kind of thing, you know. But yeah, there's a
lot of ethical questions involved in this stuff, right, But
like you're saying, I guess with the company like Fiser,
at least there is the sense of oversight. But it's
so great and yeah, and it's dangerous too. You know.
It's like the argument we uh, we hear a lot
in various correspondencies on the internet. You know, a lot

(01:04:13):
of folks tell us in reference to pharmaceutical companies that
these companies are not seeking a cure. Why would they
put themselves out of business there instead building a service
model based on making somebody take a regiment of pills
on a regular basis for the rest of their life.
I think that's spot on. And if that pill can
make you need to take another pill because of side effects,
then all too so this is, uh, that's something we

(01:04:38):
should also explore. Yeah, it seems like you're pretty convinced
that's true. I mean, I don't know exactly to what extent,
but it certainly seems like cure research has to be
much more like privately funded or and it's it's a
lot harder to get that kind of research funded than
it is to get funding for something that's like a
sure thing that we know will make Yeah, that's a

(01:05:01):
good point. There are a lot of diseases that persist
because there's done a profit incentive too combat them, you know,
But but the research does continue, and for the record,
malaria is dwindling. Now well that's cool. Yeah, just for
the record, I can't imagine large governments, especially those with

(01:05:25):
armies that heavily rely on skilled human beings. I don't
see why any one of those would not be at
least trying some kind of genetic enhancement research. Oh. Also,
I just remembered we asked Matt to have a superhero alias, right, um,

(01:05:46):
and I think the closest we came organically with Sticky Matt.
Um that was closed. I don't know if you want
to be Sticky Mat. I think serrup skin works or
um the serrup snake, this syrups syrupy snake. That's pretty good.
The syrupy snakes blip versus the syrupy snake. Yeah no, no,

(01:06:07):
we'd be that does sound kind of evil if you're
the snake. Yeahs, do you spit maple syrup? Like you do.
Or you could be it just gets you real sticky people.
You could also be like the syrup ferret. That's also
a sort of serpentine but less Well, if if Zippy

(01:06:28):
Tristan over here was running after you, you could spit
maple syrup on his feet and slow him down. Here
we go. Yeah, okay, so you're the speedster. You can teleport.
I'm pointing at people now. Sorry, I just realized I
forgot that they can't shadow demon. I'm fine with that. Look,
I think shadow Powers is creative. I was going for creativity,

(01:06:48):
just throwing this in their shadow Demon I believe is
a five six flyer for six man. Is this a
magic reference? Is that good? Is any of what he
said good? That? Well, if it's good, then that's fine.
That'll I'll be a shadow demon perfect. Alright, Well, I
wish it was a better name. But uh, but we

(01:07:11):
hope you enjoyed this episode and it is time for
good at corner. Our first shout out goes to Matt.
Matt listened to an episode that we just released around
the times of our birthdays in August, and he says,
I just listened to how may I help you? The

(01:07:32):
episode and although the episode and acting inside was fantastic,
how dare you leave your listeners hanging like that? Just kidding?
L O L I loved it. Even though I look
forward to learning each week about all the topics you
guys cover, this was a nice break, incredibly entertaining and
downright hilarious at times. Wow, thank you, Matt. That's very kind.

(01:07:53):
I hope this will become a regular addition to the show.
Keep up the great work, guys, and Matt says. Ps Us,
if the title didn't give it away, I am a Canadian,
l O l oh. The title is know what the
h e? Double hockey sticks? Uh? Well, first, thanks for writings.
Is this such a tremendous compliment? I was Nolan. I

(01:08:14):
were looking each other waiting to see what the plot twist?
Would you know the plot twist? What was your dramatic reading? Sorry?
The plot twist is that he hopes that it will
become a regular addition to our show. We have to
give producer Alex some serious props for that one. I
don't think we we we gave him his due in
the actual episode because he not only did like the

(01:08:35):
sound design and all the cool stuff, he like that
song at the end he like from scratch and that's
so Tarantino, so cool, and it even has the lyrics
that like match the theme of the episodes. It's great.
You guys haven't listened to that one, or if you
skipped over it because you were like, this is weird,
it's trust me, it's fun at least at the art

(01:08:55):
of fun. My only regret is that we we didn't
get to hear inside the episode how Tristan really feels
about you, Ben, because we got it on an audio. Okay,
I guess we can play the outtake. Thanks Uncle Roy,
back to work, then, love you. That's a real got
do we have that that that clip is too good?

(01:09:18):
I love you too, So we have rewrites. Thanks so,
thank you so much. We uh, we really enjoyed doing
this sort of stuff and it's it's a treat for
us as well. It does take a little bit more time,
a lot of time in post production to make it
sound good. You're lucky enough to have a cool crew

(01:09:38):
that was into, you know, doing it, and you surprised
us with that. I don't know if we mentioned that
either you like had written this thing and surprised us
with a fancy table read and all this stuff, and
it came out really great and I'm pretty excited. Well,
here's here's the next time it. Stay tuned for all
Hallow's Eve perhaps Okay, okay, Then next shout out is

(01:10:01):
from Paul says, good day, gentlemen. I hope you are
all well. I've been an avid listener for several years
now and have really enjoyed listening to your interviews and analysis.
I don't usually this is me Noel talking. I don't
usually read the accolades here, but I want to read
it so because it sets up what's to come. Um,
I can't speak highly enough of your podcast. I was
therefore not very impressed with your recent podcast on Bigfoot.

(01:10:23):
I've been a Bigfoot fansince as long as I can remember,
so I couldn't wait to hear the podcast on the
train on the way to work last week. I was
therefore expecting some groundbreaking news videos still pictures, but alas
absolutely nothing. I'm gonna skip some of this, uh this
stomping on our big Foot episode, just to get to
the part that I thought was actually interesting. I think
this Holy Email is interesting. I understand it is a

(01:10:44):
little bit longer. Uh, and I do want to point
out that I love that you said stomping on our
big Foot episode of stomping on our big So I'm
gonna get to the part that I thought was most interesting,
but alas absolutely nothing. Then there was the issue of population.
I believe the figure quoted was already thousand. But then
later David Bakara, our guest, went on to say that

(01:11:05):
they were from another dimension. They can't be flesh and
blood in one sentence and then invisible interdimensional in the next.
It's too confusing. I could be swayed one way or
the other, but both. I could go on ranting and
pointing out in consistencies, but I'll stop here. Um. And
then he says, nothing against you, guys, but you need
to ask your guests some tougher questions. Otherwise, if we

(01:11:27):
follow David Bakar's logic, we can blame everything Jfkin, eleven,
ufom On, Santa, New World Worder, etcetera. On the magical elves.
Keep up the good work and ask the hard questions.
You never know you might end up with an exclusive
piece of evidence as opposed to blaming fairy folk. Best regards, Paul,
I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, you know, it was
it was just harsh but fair, um to. In our defense,

(01:11:52):
the fairy stuff and the interdimensional stuff was sort of
the thought experiment, and it was kind of like the
way we approached it as far as I the way
I approached it was, that's an interesting thing to think about.
Why are they so elusive? Perhaps, and there's a lot
of accounts of them shimmering out and you know, doing
these kind of like predator invisibility kind of stuff. Right.

(01:12:15):
I don't know, I never really said that I was
fully on board with it, but I enjoyed talking about
this stuff, even if it's not like the most obvious solution.
So that's what an interview is a lot of times,
it's kind of just going down rabbit holes with people.
And I felt like we asked good questions and that
we you know, went explored various aspects of the Bigfoot phenomenon. Well,

(01:12:36):
it's weird that interview we were going, we're going right
up against one of the tenants of our show, which
is not to tell anybody what to believe, right, And
if we're going to go right right ahead and say, hey,
we don't believe you, David or we don't believe this.
I think that's doing a disservice to everybody listening. So

(01:12:57):
I do remember I felt we you remiss if we
didn't say, all right, if there's a creature this large,
why aren't there any bodies? Why isn't there any fecal matter?
You know, guerrillas other large primates often build nest where
the where are where the h e double hockey sticks
are those? And that was part of the question and
prompted that prompted this proposition of as some sort of

(01:13:21):
extra dimensional entity, which is just not not doing it
for me. There's not even there's not a shred of
corroborating evidence. But um, but I will point out also
that our the person we interviewed, David bick Era, I believe,
if I recall correctly, at some point he said he
didn't want people to find Bigfoot. Isn't that the thing

(01:13:46):
that he mentioned? So he has some he he does
have some. Uh. I appreciate you pointing this out, poll
because I clocked it too. He does have some seemingly
self contradicting theories about and I think he just going
through and considering each of them out loud. But you
know what if it turns out the Bigfoot is some

(01:14:07):
sort of extra dimensional entity. I will um, I will
apologize publicly. I will eat a hat, um, I will
wear a stupid costume for a year in this dimension
or the next. You know, it's the least I can do.
I'd rather be uh, I'd rather learn the truth than

(01:14:27):
feel like I am always right. You know what I mean?
But I will be really surprised and just give you
really surprised um. And if you guys have not checked
out that interview yet, please do give it a listen.
We we we found some really cool stuff and the
guy has an encyclopediac knowledge of uh Bigfoot encounter stories.

(01:14:49):
You know? All right, we have one more shout out today.
It is from Camilla. Camilla says, Hey, guys, I'm a
little elait to this, but I just dis convert your podcast.
So I've been listening to a lot of past episodes
at work, but I think I have a good explanation
for what a kitten whisper is from my own personal
experience with kittens. Yeah, who shows this? Was that in

(01:15:11):
our drug episode or something? Or weird? Wasn't that like
a slang for copping some kind of drug we went.
It was a it was a huge list, and at
the end kitten whisper was there. We decided that was
our favorite because when I first saw this email, I
was like, does she mean kitten whisperer? Yeah? No, no, no, no, no,
kitten whisper, that sweet kitten whisper. So I'm sorry, Ben

(01:15:32):
carry so well. Thank you to Deep Cut. That is
thank you. THO was deeper than I had. I wasn't
sure what a kitten whisper was as we were reading this,
so Camilla is helping us out. She says, I think
I have a good explanation for what a kitten whisper
is from my own personal experience with kittens. I think
a kitten whispers when they sniff your ear and you
can hear the little adorable sniffles. Thanks for keeping me

(01:15:54):
entertained at work. Okay, Okay, so maybe not a drug.
Maybe it's just the little sniffles, or maybe it's opium. Okay,
So thank you so much, Camilla Paul, and that this
concludes our If you want to be like Camilla, Paul
and Matt and write to us, you can find us

(01:16:16):
on Twitter and Facebook, where we're conspiracy stuff you can
check out some photos that we post and hang out
with us on Instagram Conspiracy Stuff Show, and we especially
want to hear from you if you have any stories
about superpowers in your family's genetics. Perhaps, oh yeah, that's
that's the business. Oh yeah, anything you've encountered of it.

(01:16:37):
Strangely that maybe you're a geneticist and you want to
clarify some things with us. You want to slap us
around and call us a bunch of dummies, that's okay,
We accept and we want to learn from you. So
if you don't want to reach out to us through
through those social media venues, you can write to us directly.
We are Conspiracy and How Stuff Works dot com